March 20, 2013

NYT headline. You may think this sounds absurd, just a figment of the imagination of American liberals who somehow suddenly see this once-unknown issue as the centerpiece of civil rights, but:

Argentina was on the verge of approving gay marriage, and the Roman Catholic Church was desperate to stop that from happening. It would lead tens of thousands of its followers in protest on the streets of Buenos Aires and publicly condemn the proposed law, a direct threat to church teaching, as the work of the devil.

But behind the scenes, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who led the public charge against the measure, spoke out in a heated meeting of bishops in 2010 and advocated a highly unorthodox solution: that the church in Argentina support the idea of civil unions for gay couples....

Bergoglio revealed himself as "a deal maker willing to compromise and court opposing sides in the debate, detractors included." Where opposition wasn't going to stop gay marriage, the compromise of civil unions might. That was the thinking. Bergoglio "acted as both the public face of the opposition to the law and as a bridge-builder."

“He didn’t want the church to take a position of condemning people but rather of respect for their rights like any vulnerable person,” said [Roxana Alfieri, a social worker in the communications department of the bishops’ central office here] who sat in on the bishops’ 2010 meeting.

Men in Argentina don't generally think of themselves as gay, Althouse.

The Latin American formulation is different.

You're only gay if you're a bottom. If you're a top, you're still hetero. In most Latin societies, it's common for straight men to take a "night off" for sex with a man. So long as you remain a top, you're still hetero.

You're grasping at straws here, just as you are grasping at straws with the oppression bullshit. You're kinda naive about sex, too.

I am encouraged that he will allow reason to prevail over dogma, though that can be a slippery slope. For example, I presume he did not adopt a wide stance on the church's teaching on gay sex. So go ahead and unionize, but no touching!

I am not responsible for the flock and am not Catholic, so know Frances had to lighten up to get to this position. My own stance is that government has no business regulating marriage, except for one at a time and humans only. That makes me a hypocrite-American, and I embrace my hypocricy in the privacy of my own bedroom and hopefully in a pride parade down main street with my fellow tribal members.

It is the old "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" philosophy.

Civil Unions are a function of the State/Ceasar. Bessing marriage belongs to the Church/God.

Good philosophy. You mind your business and I'll mind mine. But....the Gay activists and the Libs, just can't leave anything alone. They MUST dictate and force everyone to condone and approve of their views and actions and just cannot stand it that other people do not agree with them. So, like Obama, they use force.

"Good philosophy. You mind your business and I'll mind mine. But....the Gay activists and the Libs, just can't leave anything alone. They MUST dictate and force everyone to condone and approve of their views and actions and just cannot stand it that other people do not agree with them. So, like Obama, they use force."

The gays are just using government force to do what traditionalists were doing before. They used government power to force people to adhere to their point of view. Until you take the government out of this equation the minority will always be under the thumb of the majority.

I do see his point on civil unions. Came around to supporting them maybe a decade ago. But, I still haven't heard a convincing argument why SSM would not lead to other loosening up of marriage constraints, and, in particular, the legalization of polygamy. The critical thing, in my mind, is that SSM has never been sanctioned by a culture that has thrived thereafter, but there is a long history of polygamy. Indeed, one of the biggest religions in the world still fully supports it, and there are references in both the Old and New Testaments that would seemingly support polygamy. So, we have no historical support for SSM, and a lot for polygamy - why should the first be a civil rights issue, and the second still banned? Slippery slope, if I ever saw one.

But, then, why not polygamy? For those poor fools who think that two or three wives would be easier than just one. Or, husbands.

The anti-gay marriage side has always been pragmatict on this issue, extending the compromise of civil unions. It is the pro-gay marriage side that has been the all or nothing fanatics, disdaining equal treatment under law and demanding instead endorsement of their lifestyle.

Dust Bunny Queen said... It is the old "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" philosophy.

Civil Unions are a function of the State/Ceasar. Bessing marriage belongs to the Church/God.

This exactly. Gays are entitled to make the same contracts any other adult citizen is allowed to make.If God doesn't want to sanction gay marriage (though I doubt the omnipotent Creator of the infinite universe is giving it much thought) he won't.

But, then, why not polygamy? For those poor fools who think that two or three wives would be easier than just one. Or, husbands.

The only answer you will get is that our current laws are set up for two people, an A and a B, so SSM recognition wouldn't require new legal tools to implement. This is arguing from convenience, though, and wholly unsatisfactory. If you really press a SSM advocate on this particular aspect of the issue, eventually, they will simply throw up their hands and say that if polygamists want their rights recognized, they need to organize and do their own groundwork.

Good philosophy. You mind your business and I'll mind mine. But....the Gay activists and the Libs, just can't leave anything alone. They MUST dictate and force everyone to condone and approve of their views and actions and just cannot stand it that other people do not agree with them. So, like Obama, they use force.

The gays are just using government force to do what traditionalists were doing before. They used government power to force people to adhere to their point of view. Until you take the government out of this equation the minority will always be under the thumb of the majority.

Tell it to Patroclus.

What existed before was the will and expressed belief of the vast majority - and still is.

What the homosexuals are doing is what the Left has always had to do. If you can't win at the ballot box, do it through the appellate courts, where the people have no recourse.

Is this a silly allegory? People who support the words civil unions for same sex relationships, but not the word marriage for same, see it as similar to calling Christmas as not only a celebration for the birth of Christ but also a celebration for the birth of Moses, or the birth of Muhammad or the birth of Buddha etc.

The word of God can still be our authority for life, without our surrendering its meaning to Hasidic legalists ( called Judaizers by Paul) out of fear of that Christ's grace message by over ruling the Law of Moses creates an unsafe world and breaks the Old Covenant.

That is why mankind was given the Holy Spirit under a New Covenant that leads into Christ's righteousness, peace and joy.

"What the homosexuals are doing is what the Left has always had to do. If you can't win at the ballot box, do it through the appellate courts, where the people have no recourse."

I agree they have a power at all costs method. I don't agree with how they are advancing their cause. But right now you are trying to bail out the ocean with a bucket. The schools, media, and popular culture are all pushing one direction and it is not toward traditional marriage. If not now you will soon be a minority and most people will support SSM. The majority will use the government to impose their will on you. Just another example of how the government divides us where we should not be divided.

The schools, media, and popular culture are all pushing one direction and it is not toward traditional marriage. If not now you will soon be a minority and most people will support SSM. The majority will use the government to impose their will on you. Just another example of how the government divides us where we should not be divided.

The Left is pushing one direction and it is not toward traditional marriage.

FIFY.

And I remember when the ERA was "inevitable".

And funny thing about that "you will soon be a minority" stuff (right up there with "Resistance Is Futile"). The Lefties love to keep saying how white people will soon be the minority. They've been saying it for 20 years, but guess what?

Thanks to the Lefties, we now have net negative immigration and black people are aborting themselves out of existence.

Scott M is right. All modern movements: civil rights, environment, feminism, SSM, public acceptance of tatoos and booger-hooks, the $5 cup o Joe, the $5 per hour gardener and our Black and White Muslim President are all the fruits of our free-market democratic republic.

If the repugs could figure out a way to sell that, they could put on big boy pants and get their greasy fingers back on the chicken switch.

I find this topic increasingly tedious, because it is all about a word. Yes, feel free to argue that it is more, if you like- I won't bother to try to dissuade you; I wouldn't be able to. But you won't change my mind either.

Most people are ok with gay civil-unions, but not gay marriage, which to me is silly for both sides. Silly for gays who are not satisfied with "civil unions" that give them the same legal rights as straight couples, and silly for the straights who seemingly have no ability to recognize that there already is a distinction between a court-house marriage and a religious one; if there wasn't why do so many people choose to do both-- get a state marriage license and have a religious ceremony? The idea of widening that distinction by adding gay couples to the state definition of marriage, should not be such a stretch for the imagination.

I know the fear is that if you concede to allow the legal definition of marriage to be redefined that the church one will also be impacted-- the "priests will be forced to marry gays" argument. (I don't feel that fear is entirely unfounded BTW). But get this-- by arguing that the legal definition of marriage cannot or should not be modified to allow same sex couples, then the push to find a gay marriage "right" is the path that activists will choose; as witnessed by the professor's position that the courts should bless us by discovering that right. And if they succeed in getting the courts to declare that gay marriage is a "right" protected by the constitution, then religious marriage is more likely to be impacted than by simply altering state law. Plus it opens the door for polygamy and other forms of "marriage" groups as similarly protected constitutional rights.

Scott M is right. All modern movements: civil rights, environment, feminism, SSM, public acceptance of tatoos and booger-hooks, the $5 cup o Joe, the $5 per hour gardener and our Black and White Muslim President are all the fruits of our free-market democratic republic.

If the repugs could figure out a way to sell that, they could put on big boy pants and get their greasy fingers back on the chicken switch.

My God, what drivel!

The only movement there that was truly popular was the civil rights movement.

The rest had nothing to do with a free market republic - they had to do with a Leftist agenda based on using the appellate courts to ram through issues they knew couldn't win at the ballot box.

Whatever else he's babbling about regarding the Republicans, God only knows, but their big problem right now is that they believe the media as much as the Facebook crowd and are spooked by it.

The rest had nothing to do with a free market republic - they had to do with a Leftist agenda based on using the appellate courts to ram through issues they knew couldn't win at the ballot box.

I think you missed the point of what he was saying. Whatever set of circumstances that made modern western civilization the most affluent in history also allowed for these movements/bitches/moans/groans to arise.

Affluence seems to breed complainers. It may eventually lead to our downfall or otherwise subsequent un-assing of affluence because we're top-heavy with complainers. I don't know, but it's just an idea. Sort of like the three generations from rags to riches to rags phenomena that seems to cut across cultures, but applied to generations.

Scott M is spot on again. The rise of complaining narcissists is the Bain of our age. However, all of these minority issues that folks piss and moan about have realpolitik synergistic leverage that the demoncrats harvest for votes.

The repugs would be smart to remember that we campaign in the existing social milieu, not the one in the past we pine for.

Fortunately, it looks like all the young dudes in the senate have got that memo.

As socially liberal and soft hearted for the poor that I am, the MF gun grabbers and nanny-state pus buckets need a counter-balance.

...just a figment of the imagination of American liberals who somehow suddenly see this once-unknown issue as the centerpiece of civil rights...

You got that right.

There is something imaginary about a civil right that has just about no impact on freedom, money, voting, employment, renting, insurance, or anything else and will only be exercised by maybe 20% of 2-4% of the population and result in unions that break up more often and last less time than conventional marriages and raise at best 10% the number of children per union as conventional marriages.

Meanwhile America is facing an unprecedented financial and demographic crisis in a world where the rest of the world is collapsing even faster, and WMD are becoming cheaper and more accessible than ever before.

I'm so glad that American liberals have their priorities straight and are forcing the country to face this absolutely horrifying injustice.

...publicly condemn the proposed law, a direct threat to church teaching, as the work of the devil.

Really? Is that how they phrased it? I suppose it's possible that a phrase like "work of the devil" got used by some Catholic at the time, but color me skeptical that the fundie bible-basher vibe implied here is an accurate representation of the arguments and protests. Even to a casual observer it's apparent that the opposition of the Roman Catholic church to gay marriage is a tad more elaborated and, shall we say, nuanced than...."Satan!".

Somebody (wish I could remember who) once remarked that, to the typical religion-clueless journalist, all religious leaders are that preacher from Footloose. So when they don't see somebody like Bergoglio snake-wrangling and babbling in tongues, they get all confused and start seeing some new progressive breakthrough that just ain't there.

Paul wrote that a deacon or bishop should have only one wife, or remain like him without one. Jesus said that some men were wifeless because they were born that way, or made that way by other men, maybe castrated or turned, it's not clear. And some were wifeless for the glory of God. Jesus did not say anything about having sex with other men, but Paul did and he didn't like it.

Why is this debate focused solely on homosexual behavior? Surely people know this is a bigoted perspective. If we wish to experience the full "benefits" of progress, and dispense with all reactive forms of bigotry, then the process of normalization must extend to all non-lethal unions. Then again, as abortion is also considered a right, we must also consider normalizing lethal unions.

Men and women are bigots unless they support normalization of all unions, lethal and non-lethal, human and non-human.

I think heterosexual men and women engaged in dysfunctional behaviors are more desirous of the latter outcome. The consequences of their behaviors could more easily be obfuscated with the marginalization of evolutionary fitness. They already adhere to selective human and civil rights standards, typically to favor preservation of their wealth, welfare, and backyards.

It really is the only logical solution (civil unions). Gay marriage is not the same as marriage. Gays literally can't marry as gays. Because marriage requires a bride and groom and this gay marriage is the equivalent of putting a square peg into round hole.Why then it became an equal protection argument is beyond me. I always hear howSeparate but equal doesnt work, butWhat is it BUT separate? That is not me HATING gays. That is simply looking at marriage and realizing that it doesn't apply to gays.Gays want rights they don't and can't possess. They do have the right to a marriage it just would be with the opposite sex. But a civil union could provide gays what they want. It wouldn't redefine marriage, it would give gays their benefits and it wouldn't force churches to violate their conscience.

That's right. However, since we have now dispensed with biological imperatives and evolutionary principles as the primary motive, civil unions cannot reasonably discriminate based on sexual behavior. There is no longer a justification to distinguish between sexual, platonic, and other kinds of relationships.

Let the experiment begin. It's just a matter of overcoming or ignoring popular and natural resistance.

No, that is fantasy normalization in the land of television production. It represents a producer or writer's dream of normal. It is a depiction of their preferred reality and an effort to exploit a publicly accessible channel to destroy its viewers resistance.

Normalization of dysfunctional behaviors, including homosexuality, would require rolling back the revelation of evolutionary principles, which most people appreciate through instinct. It can be accomplished through indoctrination but with only marginal results. The effectiveness of indoctrination diminishes as an individual attempts to reconcile the incongruities between reality and their education.

The above phenomenon is similar to what happens with efforts to normalize abortion. An individual is less likely to be pro-abortion, than pro-choice, because it is premeditated murder of an innocent human life when it is most vulnerable. Describing a developing human life as a fetus, or something similarly innocuous, will only remain effective until our minds are freed from dreams of material, physical, and ego gratification. Eventually, the circumstances and intrinsic value of human life will reassert their influence.

The legalization of polygamy would be incredibly expensive - that's my argument why it will never happen.

You legalize polygamy, but don't have universal healthcare, get some guy to marry everybody in his town or state and BOOM, universal healthcare... which would actually be kind of interesting to see attempted. Privately as well, all "multi-couples" by marriage would have to be covered on the family plans of insurance agencies, cell phone plans, you name it.

The point is not to normalize gay relationships, but to demonize religious teaching.

Most (good) preachers and rabbis spend their time not so much talking down sin, as talking up marriage, extolling the sinless pleasures of marital sex, and the holiness of its union, worth the candle despite its challenges.

By placing a moral censure on all other sex, congregants are gently urged, from adolescence on, toward marriage.

And that's the target. That's what they seek to denormalize. Gays may or may not benefit ever so slightly from gay marriage. But straights, especially those at the margins, will be devastated.